Chosen for the Marriage Bed. Anne O'Brien

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СКАЧАТЬ obeyed the calm, beautifully modulated voice. Bowed her head to the Prioress, hands folded before her and eyes downcast as she had been taught, before curtsying to her uncle, Sir John de Lacy.

      Elizabeth gave no thought to the tasteful comfort of the room, in stark contrast with the rooms of the Priory that she inhabited. Her whole attention was centred on the man who stood beside the Prioress’s chair. And the second man who hovered at his shoulder. Now what?

      ‘You have a visitor, Sister Elizabeth.’

      Elizabeth felt the power of his presence as Sir John cast an eye over her. His energy filled the room, as his figure did not. Not over tall, light-framed, wiry with dark hair and light blue eyes, proclaiming more than a hint of Welsh blood in the de Lacy family over the generations, Sir John was all controlled energy. Face heavily lined with impatience but deliberately impassive, he stated the reason for his visit.

      ‘You look well, my niece.’

      Elizabeth inclined her head with arrogant composure as her only reply. Her only protection against those searching eyes. She knew what she must look like and it could not be a pleasing picture, her black habit unflatteringly leaching any colour from her cheeks, and it would be even worse without the disguising folds of her robes and veil. She would not smile or bid him welcome.

      Nor would she even acknowledge the man who travelled with her uncle. Nicholas Capel. Tall, impressive with his sweep of hair to his shoulders, he was a familiar figure at Talgarth. What was he to her uncle? Adviser? Servant? Elizabeth did not think the man served anyone but himself. Some said he was a priest, defrocked for unnamed sins. Jane, tight-lipped, swore he was a necromancer who served the Devil. Clad in black from collar to hose, his bottomless dark eyes all but stripped the flesh from her bones. Elizabeth shuddered.

      ‘I have made a decision on your future, Elizabeth.’

      Elizabeth’s heart leapt in her breast within the confines of the rough black cloth that rubbed her skin raw. A sudden beat of hope that shook her whole body. Surely everyone in the room must be aware of it? But she allowed none of it to register on her face.

      ‘And what is your decision, Sir John?’

      ‘You are to come home.’ Elizabeth allowed the briefest of glances at the Prioress, but found no enlightenment there. ‘Or not home, exactly. But you are to leave the Priory.’

      ‘I see.’ But she did not.

      There was a light knock on the door, which opened to admit a young man whose presence brought the first genuine emotion to Elizabeth’s face and a quick flush of bright colour.

      ‘David…! I didn’t know you were here.’

      ‘I’ve been seeing to the horses…’

      Once she would have run across the room to greet him. Once she would have flung her arms around the young brother whom she had raised from childhood, holding him close in delight at his presence. Once she would have laughed her pleasure at his familiar, lively features and kissed his cheek, ruffled his dark hair. Now under the stern gaze of the Prioress, her uncle’s untrustworthy watchfulness, Capel’s sinister stare, she stood her ground and waited.

      ‘Elizabeth!’ Regardless of protocol, David strode across the room to grasp her rigid shoulders and salute her cheek, studying her face with the sharp blue eyes of the de Lacys. ‘I couldn’t stay away.’

      ‘You look well. How is Lewis?’

      ‘When does our brother not thrive?’ David swept her query away. ‘Has Sir John told you?’

      ‘No. He has told me nothing.’ Elizabeth returned the grasp of his hands, a quick fierce pressure, then released herself. It would be too easy to allow emotion to hold sway. She must take care to show no weakness. She had still not been told of the plan for her. ‘So what do you want of me, Uncle?’ she asked Sir John. ‘Why must I come home—but not home, exactly?’ Better to know now, however much she might dislike the outcome.

      ‘My daughter Maude is dead.’

      ‘I know.’ Her face softened a little. ‘We had heard. I am sorry.’

      The Prioress was quick to intervene. ‘We are not so closed off here that we were unaware. We have offered our prayers for the little maid’s soul, Sir John.’

      He nodded, but continued to address his niece. ‘It is intended that you take Maude’s place in the negotiated settlement with Lord Richard Malinder of Ledenshall. That you will honour the marriage contract.’

      Startled, Elizabeth took a breath as she considered the statement. Release from Llanwardine. But at what cost? She was once more to be a player in the ongoing de Lacy scheming to achieve even more power in the March. But with a difference. Dismay gripped her. ‘I should have known, shouldn’t I? I am to be a bride again. But this time I am to be married to a Lancastrian, not aYorkist. I am to be wed to the enemy. Your plots would seem to have taken a turn for the devious, Uncle.’ She ignored her brother’s strangled cough, keeping her direct gaze on Sir John’s suddenly heated countenance. He might prefer that their differences not be aired before Lady Isabel, but what did she care?

      ‘You will find Malinder a more congenial prospect than Sir Owain. His politics need not trouble you.’ The harsh reply dared her to disagree or to continue her public washing of family linen. ‘It will be arranged that you have an escort from here to Ledenshall, Malinder’s home.’

      ‘I am not to go home first. To Bishop’s Pyon.’ Elizabeth’s query hid a wealth of hurt.

      ‘Surely, Uncle…’ David added, ‘would it not be more fitting…?’

      ‘It is better if you travel straight to your new home, my lady,’ Master Capel observed, smooth, conciliatory. ‘The wedding ceremony can take place as soon as you arrive.’

       Better for whom?

      Elizabeth merely dropped her gaze. What did she think of this unexpected development? A handful of months ago it had taken only the space of a heartbeat to reject the prospect of Sir Owain Thomas as husband, to dare to run the gauntlet of her uncle’s displeasure. But having spent the intervening months here at Llanwardine, she had learnt a harsh lesson. Surely this new offer would be better, more satisfying than life here. She had thought so often enough, when the bell for Prime dragged her from her bed into the frozen spaces of the Priory church. When her hands had stiffened with cold as she dug the iced and unyielding earth to liberate the final winter roots in the kitchen garden.

      But Richard Malinder? What did she know of him? Tales of him were rife, of his growing authority, the increasing power of his blade and his fist in the name of Lancastrian King Henry. Black Malinder, who had lost his first wife to a tragic pregnancy that had claimed both mother and child. Would she want this man as her husband? He was the enemy. A Lancastrian, giving his misguided allegiance to the man who claimed the throne as Henry VI, whereas she had been raised to follow the superior rival bloodline of the Plantagenet House of York. How would it be if she were wed to a man whose political leanings were directly opposed to her own? The dismay deepened. Would he insist that she change her allegiance? Could she do that?

      And then another thought. Black Malinder, he was called. Was he the beautiful face in the scrying dish? Was he one of the dark men of Jane’s scrying, who might be either friend or foe? There was no knowing. All the men in her life were dark. Her brothers Lewis and David. СКАЧАТЬ